DDP was ‘violating’ distribution contracts DPSG had set up with other bottlers in nearby territories.
The problem was that DDP was selling like hotcakes via the internet, and shops were requesting the DDP instead of the regular DP sold by DPSG. Owners of the neighboring territories took the dispute to corporate, who took them to court.
Legally, DPSG had them dead to rights. It didn’t matter however that DPSG couldn’t have gotten the parties together to explain the vast goodwill that will have been lost with the closure of DDP in Dublin.
Exacerbating the problem is that DPSG is making a mint. They have so much cash they don’t know what to do with it all, and as such nobody saw this loss of goodwill as a problem, except maybe their accountants, who may or may not write down the loss in ‘goodwill’ in their 10-K.
Further exacerbating things is the fact that DPSG has never sold a bottle of soda outside of North America, even though they have 7 non-cola drinks holding the number one market position in their categories. Most of their production is actually purchased from their competitors, Coke and Pepsi.
Strategically, DPSG isn’t the best run place on earth, but they have outstanding brand managers.
That’s pretty spot-on. I think corporate was selling it to larger places like Whole Foods, etc, which made it look like Dublin Dr. Pepper was an even bigger violator than it was. Thing is, when corporate moved on to fructose all those years ago and Dublin did not, Dublin DP gained popularity over the years until, eventually, corporate felt the need to do something about it, reinforcing the ‘eeevil corporation’ mantra so many or buying into.